One founding father's bones were carried to Gurgy and reburied, and his descendants over seven generations lie around him, with almost no adult daughters

Gurgy "Les Noisats" is a cemetery of more than 100 people buried between 4850 and 4500 BC, excavated by Stéphane Rottier from 2004 to 2007. In July 2023 a team led by Maïté Rivollat and Wolfgang Haak published genomes of 94 of them in Nature. The largest family tree links 64 people over seven generations, the largest pedigree yet rebuilt from ancient DNA. A second tree links 12 people over five generations. Everyone in the large tree descends from one man. Only a few of his long bones were found, bundled beside a woman whose DNA failed. His remains had been dug up elsewhere and reburied at Gurgy, where he had at least 66 descendants. Fathers were often buried beside sons and brothers beside each other. Sons stayed; almost every adult woman came from outside, and most adult daughters of the line are missing, presumably married away. There were many full siblings and no half-siblings, which suggests monogamy, or that children of other unions were buried elsewhere. Haak called the absence of half-siblings "a bit mind-boggling." The first generation's children and the last generation's adults are absent. The family appears to have arrived with its founder's bones, used the cemetery for about a century, and left.